Nightfall Over Shanghai (25 page)

“Where does he want to go? America?”

“Simon wants us to go to America with him and Esther. To live in the Bronx, wherever that is.”

“And Franz?”

“He's not certain. But he doesn't want to stay here.”

“America, then? Or perhaps Australia? Even Canada?”

“I suppose. He's even talking about Palestine.”

“
Palestine?
” Jia-Li gaped at her. “What would possess him to go there, of all places?”

“There's a rabbi in the ghetto who is most vocal about creating a Jewish state in Palestine. He's very persuasive. Franz has become intrigued.”

“What, then? You just move the refugee hospital from here to Jerusalem?”

“Who knows what will happen to us, let alone the hospital.”

Jia-Li scooped Joey up, perching him on her knee. “You can't just up and drag Joey away to some awful desert.” She affected her English accent again. “I simply will not have it.”

“I don't want to go either. I hear the British won't even allow any more Jewish settlers into Palestine. Apparently, the local Arab population is hostile. It could amount to leaving one war zone for another.” Sunny shook her head. “Besides, you and I are both rooted here as deeply as the poplars and elms of Frenchtown.”

The bedroom was already muggy, and the calendar had only just flipped over to May. Franz suspected that the stifling heat of another Shanghai summer wasn't far away.

Sunny stirred beside him and stretched. “Is he still asleep?” she asked, her whisper evolving into a yawn.

Her leg was draped over his, so Franz had to stretch his neck to see Joey in the crib at the foot of the bed. The child kept so quiet that Franz wasn't certain. “I think so, yes.”

Sunny ran her fingers lightly across Franz's chest. “It's such a lovely treat when he sleeps in.”

Franz kissed the top of her head, drinking in the soapy fragrance of her lustrous hair. He wondered how she always smelled so fresh when they only had the luxury of a proper bath once or twice a month. “If only we could sleep in.” Franz sighed.

Her hand rested delicately on his lower belly, two fingers digging tantalizingly below the string of his pyjama bottoms. “Why can't we?”

“We have surgery. Frau Ingelmann. She and her two hernias are waiting for us.”

Sunny's hand slipped deeper into his pyjamas. “Her hernias have been waiting four years. What is another hour?”

Franz felt himself hardening at Sunny's touch. Frau Ingelmann would have to wait. He reached out and gently stroked her thigh, running his hand up under the thin fabric of her nightgown until it reached the warmth between her legs. She moaned quietly at his light caress. Pulling her nightgown up, she rolled on top of him. Effortlessly, she slid his pyjamas down. With one thrust, he was inside her.

After they had made love a second time, they lay sweating in each other's arms, giggling at their early morning exuberance. Sunny ran her hand through Franz's damp hair. “Mmm,” he murmured. “Your fingertips feel wonderful.”

She continued to massage his scalp gently. “Franz, I have been meaning to tell you. I ran into Father Diego yesterday.”

His lifted his head up and away from her hand. “The spy? Where would you see him?”

“I bumped into him outside the Comfort Home while I was visiting Jia-Li.”

“What did he want?”

“Nothing,” she said, her tone slightly defensive. “But he went to pains to warn me about the air raids.”

Franz wrapped the sheet across their chests. “What about them?”

As Sunny explained how the transmitter—and the ghetto by proximity—would be a target for the American planes, Franz's thoughts drifted back to the field hospital. With a sickening lump in the pit of his stomach, he pictured Helen keeling forward in mid-stride.

“Could you imagine, Sunny? If we were to survive the war, only to die at the hands of our liberators?”

“Father Diego says we have to remain vigilant.”

“Vigilance won't defuse a bomb.”

“No, but we need to be prepared. We cannot wait for the useless air sirens to sound. We have to head for the shelters as soon as we hear the first sounds of the planes.”

He exhaled heavily. “Do you really trust those shallow bomb shelters the Japanese have dug?”

She pointed at the ceiling. “More than I trust the walls and roof of this decrepit building.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Arms intertwined, they lapsed into an intimate silence. Franz thought of the meeting he had arranged for today with Rabbi Hiltmann. He knew the rabbi wanted a commitment about Palestine. He turned his head to Sunny and saw that she was staring back at him. “Darling, if we do survive until we are liberated …”

“Yes?” she said.

“We will need a fresh start.”

“You mean in Palestine, don't you?”

“There could be opportunities for us both there. To work side by side as surgeons.”

“After the war, I will be a nurse again, not a surgeon. And I will be happy for it. Besides, there will be peace and security right here in Shanghai.”

“We can't know that for certain. After all, the countryside is full of Communist rebels.”

“That is the countryside. Not the city. Oh, Franz, how can we take Joey and Hannah away from their home and toss them right back into harm's way?”

“Darling.” He reached for her cheek. “There are thousands of others like us already over there. Pioneers. You can't simply assume we will be putting anyone in harm's way.”

She jerked her face away from his hand and sat up, her legs hanging over the side of the bed, her back to him. “Can you assume that we won't be?”

***

“Did you hear about the crematoria?” Rabbi Hiltmann demanded as soon as Franz reached him. The older man stood at the front of the Ohel Moishe Synagogue polishing the wooden bimah, the platform from which he read from the Torah, with a yellow rag. “The ones at the camp they called Auschwitz?”

The Adlers had never kept a wireless in their flat. Lately, Franz even avoided listening to broadcasts on the radios that their friends and colleagues hid inside their homes. He didn't want to hear any more about the extermination camps. His chest ached at the thought of all the friends and neighbours he'd left behind in Vienna. How many of them had ended up in those crematoria? “I've heard some rumours, yes.”

“
Rumours?
Rumours are what you hear about the door-to-door salesman and the neighbour's wife. These are truths. Unimaginable, unbearably awful truths. Attested to by soldiers, newsmen and survivors, those poor souls who were lucky enough—or perhaps not, after what they have seen—to outlast their tormentors.”

Franz nodded contritely. “It was a poor choice of words,” he said, hoping to steer Hiltmann away from the subject.

“There were five crematoria in Auschwitz alone. I am told they were capable of burning five thousand bodies a day.” Hiltmann
scrubbed hard at an imaginary blemish on the polished wood. “More than a million people every year. Incinerated in one camp alone.”

The magnitude of the murder was beyond Franz's comprehension.

“And the children's shoes?” Hiltmann attacked the bimah again with his rag. “Warehouses full of shoes. Can you imagine all those children? The monsters, they kept the shoes. Why? To give away to the Aryan boys and girls? Or maybe to keep as some kind of deranged trophy?”

Franz thought of the adorable Friedmann twins, Sarah and Rosa, who had lived in his building in Vienna. They had been such good friends of Hannah's. Franz had tried to talk their father into bringing his family to Shanghai, but Herr Friedmann was determined “to wait out the Nazis.” Franz wondered if the twins' shoes were somewhere in those piles. But he just said, “The Nazis will be done soon. Everyone says so. Then the Allies will be able to bring those responsible to justice.”

“Justice?
Justice?
How will justice help the millions who died in the gas chambers? What good will it be to all those children?”

Franz dropped his chin to his chest. “Nothing can help them.”

“You are wrong, Dr. Adler.” Hiltmann shook his rag angrily at Franz. “There is one, and only one, thing that will help all those lost souls.”

“What is that, Rabbi?”

“If something good were to come from their deaths.”

“You honestly believe that?”

“In my heart and soul.” Hiltmann nodded slowly. “It is our duty as survivors to create a place where their memory will be preserved and honoured. Where their remaining family members—what few there might be left—can live and prosper.”

“In Palestine?”

“In Eretz Yisrael!”

Franz's faith wasn't strong enough to believe that anything could help the dead, but the living were a different story. “A haven for Jews the world over.”

“Exactly.” Hiltmann shook his rag like it was a flag. “So you will come with us, then?”

Franz paused, remembering his conversation with Sunny. “I'm considering it, Rabbi.”

“Good, Dr. Adler. We will need skilled doctors—surgeons, no less—most of all.”

“My wife is more skeptical.”

“Why? What would be stopping her?”

“There's my daughter. And we have a new baby to—”

“Hannah and the baby are the most important of all. Far more important than you or me. We have a whole generation of Jews to replace.” Hiltmann stared at him intently. “You must make Sunny see this.”

“Make her see?” Franz uttered a half-hearted laugh. “You don't know my wife like I do, Rabbi. Besides, Sunny has never left China.”

“Then it's time she did.”

“She worries about the children.”

The rabbi stared at him unsympathetically. “Are you familiar with the old Yiddish proverb ‘Better to die upright than to live on your knees'?”

“I've heard it before, yes.”

“Well, the Nazis have proven that we Jews can no longer live on our knees, even if we try to.”

An excited voice interrupted them. “Rabbi! Rabbi!” A bearded young man waved his arms as he rushed down the aisle toward them.

“What is it, Saul?” Hiltmann asked, annoyed.

“He's dead, Rabbi,” Saul cried.

“Who is dead?”

“Hitler!”

Franz's head swam as if he were about to relive one of his drop attacks, but his legs held firm.

Hiltmann rested a hand on the bimah. “Are you certain, boy?”

“Yes,” Saul cried. “The Nazis announced it themselves.”

“How?” The rabbi demanded. “How did that
farseenisch
die?”

“They haven't said,” Saul said happily. “Only that he is dead and Berlin has fallen.”

Franz felt a lightness in his chest and a tingling in his fingers and toes. “Have the Nazis surrendered?” he asked.

Saul shook his head. “They have a new chancellor. Some admiral named Dönitz.”

Franz struggled to absorb the news. “Hitler is really gone?”

“Yes.” Saul laughed. “Everyone is saying so on the wireless. Even the Germans.”

Hiltmann pulled his hand from the bimah. “
Danken got
,” he finally said in Yiddish. “May they dump his body in an unmarked grave beneath a mountain of shoes.”

***

Franz wandered down Ward Road at dusk, lost in a fog of emotion. Hitler was dead. Berlin had fallen. But the Japanese were fighting on, and the ghetto might be bombed at any time by the Americans. And what about the millions of Jews who had been murdered in that one camp alone?

Franz hadn't even noticed the sedan rumbling along behind him until he rounded a corner and it turned to follow him. Looking over his shoulder, he froze as he recognized the car he had seen earlier, parked outside the apartment and also the hospital. Suddenly it came to a stop, tires crunching, and the back door flew open. Franz glanced around him. He would have called for help but, aside from a coolie resting against his rickshaw at the end of the block, the side street was empty.

His pulse pounded in his ears as he considered dashing for Muirhead Road. A pair of boots had already emerged from the car. Franz doubted he could outrun them all, but nevertheless he turned and raced into the narrow alleyway behind him. Looking back over his shoulder to see whether the men were following, he did not see the wall that seemed to come out of nowhere. Slamming into it, Franz toppled backwards to the ground. Before he could regain his bearings, a huge hand wrapped around his arm and hoisted him to his feet. Franz caught a whiff of soy as he looked up into the face of von Puttkamer's Korean bodyguard.

The tall man spun Franz around effortlessly and dragged him back toward the sedan, which was now blocking the lane's entrance. Franz was still gasping as he was shoved through the back door of the sedan and fell into the empty seat across from von Puttkamer.

“Ah, Dr. Adler,” the baron said pleasantly as the door slammed shut. “We have much to discuss.”

Sunny slung the sack of rice over her shoulder while Hannah pushed the pram beside her, navigating Chusan Road's crowded sidewalk. Hannah enjoyed steering her baby brother in his carriage, even though its wheels often stuck and it had a tendency to veer to the right. Joey never seemed to notice the bumpy ride. He still wasn't talking, but as he sat in the pram, his keen eyes drank in the commotion around him.

Wednesdays were among the busiest days at the Tong Shan market, with street dentists and barbers competing for space with noisy merchants and smelly outdoor kitchens. The screams from one Chinese man, whose dentist braced himself against the chair while struggling to extract a tooth, followed them all the way down the block. Hannah noticed that the Jewish businesses—the pharmacy, the kosher bakery, the two restaurants and three cafés—appeared busier than ever. Little Vienna had developed a reputation beyond the ghetto, and it wasn't uncommon to see gentiles from the International Settlement among the locals, and to hear Russian, Finnish and French on the street.

After they had crossed the road and stepped into a quieter block, Hannah finally asked the question that had been on her
mind all day: “Is Papa going to force us to leave, Sunny?”

Sunny cocked her head. “Force us to leave? Does that sound like your father?”

“You know what I mean,” Hannah said, trying not to sound petulant. “Are we going to have to go to Palestine?”

“Nothing has been decided.”

“Do you agree with him? That Palestine will be best for us?”

Sunny bit her lip, wavering. “Shanghai is the only home I've ever known.”

“Then Papa shouldn't make you go.”

Sunny stopped. “I thought you were keen on Zionism, Hannah. Remember? You and Herschel were the ones who persuaded your father to go to the meetings in the first place.”

Hannah couldn't bring herself to tell Sunny the truth, so instead she said, “I was young and naive back then.”

Sunny laughed. “And now you're old and worldly, are you?”

Hannah feigned insult. “Maybe it has only been a year, Sunny, but I've grown up a lot in that time.”

“Yes, you have,” Sunny agreed. “So why has growing up changed your mind about Palestine?”

Feeling her face flush, Hannah was desperate to sound convincing. “The rabbi and the others, they romanticize the whole idea. The garden of milk and honey, and all that. The truth is, Palestine is one big desert, full of hostile locals. Even the British don't want any more Jews to go there.”

“Ah, I see. So this has nothing to do with Freddy, then?”

“Not at all,” Hannah said, realizing she sounded defensive. “Well, Freddy's family has no plans to go. I would miss him, of course. But I don't want to leave Shanghai either. It's my home too.”

An understanding smile crossed Sunny's face. “Your father and I are still discussing it, Hannah. Nothing is decided. I do share your concerns. And we will, of course, include you in the decision. I promise.”

Hannah slowed to a stop almost involuntarily. As her stepmother continued down the street, Hannah called to her, “Sunny.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

Hannah couldn't hold it inside any longer. “I can't leave Freddy. I just can't.”

Sunny turned back to Hannah, slipping an arm over her shoulders. “I know that's how it feels now—”

“It's not how it feels now,” Hannah muttered miserably. “It's how it is. I love him. I would die without him.”

“I know, darling.” Sunny smiled again. “You are barely fifteen. Feelings change with time.”

“No,” Hannah cried. “These never will.”

“If that is true, then it doesn't matter where you end up,” Sunny said. “You will eventually find each other.”

“Not if I am two continents away. On the far side of the world. How can we be together then?”

Sunny squeezed her shoulders tighter. “It will all work out, Hannah. I am telling you.”

“Please, Sunny,” Hannah implored. “Don't let Papa take us away.”

Sunny was contemplative. “All right,” she finally said. “I will talk to your father. That is all I can do.”

Hannah realized it guaranteed nothing, but she felt somehow reassured. She was about to thank Sunny when she heard the shouting. As soon as they turned onto Tong Shan Road, they ran into the crowd gathering outside a grocery store. Chinese and Europeans formed a semicircle on the sidewalk. Hannah had to
stand on tiptoe and peer between the shoulders and heads to spot the source of the din.

A Chinese man was kneeling on the sidewalk, his hands tied behind his back. He was flanked by two Japanese soldiers while a third man, who wore an officer's uniform with a sword clipped to his belt, stood directly in front of him. The officer was shouting at the man in Japanese. Hannah understood a smattering of Japanese, but the only word she picked up now was
dorobō
(thief) which the officer repeated three times.

Sunny grabbed Hannah by the arm and began to pull her away. “Come, let's get out of here, Hannah.”

Hannah shared her stepmother's unease. She sensed that the accused man would end up in front of one of the impromptu firing squads, which had become so common that pedestrians sidestepped the bodies as though circumnavigating lampposts. She was about to turn away when the officer unsheathed his sword.

Before she could avert her eyes, the officer raised the sword and swung down viciously with both hands. She gasped as the blade sliced partway through the kneeling man's neck just below his jaw. A fountain of blood sprayed up and the spectators nearest to him jumped back. The officer struggled to free the blade. As soon as he did, the accused man's head flopped to the side and he toppled forward.

***

School was closed for the week and Hannah wasn't supposed to see Freddy until the next morning, but she needed to talk about what she had just seen. Only he would understand. So she ran the
five blocks over to his family's flat, but Freddy wasn't there and his mother didn't know where he had gone.

Hannah headed toward the school, hoping to find Freddy somewhere along the way. She didn't see him, but she ran into Avi a block from the school. “Hello, Hannah Banana,” he said in a mocking tone that made Freddy's affectionate nickname sound somehow hurtful. Avi had always been jealous of the time and attention she had taken away from his friendship with Freddy. At first, she had tried to win Avi over, but the harder she tried, the more unfriendly he had become. Eventually, she had given up.

“Where is Freddy?” Hannah asked in lieu of a greeting.

“What's the big emergency?” Avi sneered.

“Just tell me where he is.”

“Yeah, sure. No problem.” His smile bore a hint of a challenge. “I just saw him behind the school.”

Sunny's stomach plummeted. “He's not using the transmitter again, is he?”

Avi's unpleasant smile only widened. “Not sure. Why don't you go ask him?”

Without another word, Hannah raced off for the school. She rounded the corner with her heart in her throat, expecting to see the radio set up to transmit. But the clearing was deserted. She was about to turn around when she heard noises coming from somewhere in the bushes. Reluctantly, she moved toward the sound. As soon as she reached the edge of the clearing, she spotted two pairs of intertwined legs. A girl was lying on the same blanket that Freddy had used with the radio, but Hannah couldn't see her clearly. But she could see all of Freddy. He was on top of the girl, his trousers down around his knees.

Hannah didn't even realize she had cried out until she heard her own voice in her ears. “Oh, Freddy!”

Freddy's head swivelled toward her, his face red from both exhaustion and embarrassment.

All the old hurts and insecurities came flooding back to Hannah. She tucked her vulnerable left hand behind her back.

“Hannah, wait,” Freddy called.

The tears were flowing before she had even pivoted and dashed away.